[boost] Re: Steps before moving to Subversion

From: Robert Mathews (rmathews_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-04-21 16:36:22

We just switched to Subversion from SourceSafe (no snickering please) at our
company. It's basically been a good experience, but with the following areas
of SVN caused problems:
1) svn:externals.
2) the --non-recursive flag on 'svn update' and 'svn checkout'.
3) berkley-DB repository speed.

1) svn:externals.
We used svn:externals to replace SourceSafe's concept of "shared files".
However, svn:externals are bad because
- commits at the top of a tree that contains externals do not propogate
through the externals. So, if you have a large tree, some parts that are
externals and some that are not, and you've made changes all over, when you
commit you have to remember to visit every single external and then commit
there as well.
- branching and tagging doesn't do anything special with svn:externals, and
you'd want it to.

2) the --non-recursive flag on 'svn update' and 'svn checkout'.
>From the newsgroup postings, this is the one that typically bites people who
are switching from CVS. Many people have scripts that do things like 'fetch
the top level, look at it, and then decide what other parts to fetch'. For
example, you might fetch the top level of your tree to get a configuration
file that tells you what to do next. However, once you've fetched something
non-recursively, you can't then change your mind and fetch the rest of the
tree recursively.

Actually, the problem is much worse than a missing flag on a command line,
the --non-recursive flag is completely broken and results in what is
essentially a corrupt work area. If you look around at the Subversion
postings, there is a bug report against this called ["svn checkout -N"
should actually work]
http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=695

3) berkley-DB repository speed.
It's slow to do common operations like fetching new files and getting
history. You might want to consider using the new native file format FSFS,
as it is faster.

We also used TortoiseSVN to replace the SourceSafe explorer. It's very slow,
and I've basically stopped using it except for the merge dialog.

I can't comment on the dysfunctional merge issue - I've used the merge
feature, and I've not lost any work with it yet.

Hope this helps.
Rob.

"Rene Rivera" <grafik.list_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
news:4268132D.5050203_at_redshift-software.com...
> Beman Dawes wrote:
> > Comments?
>
> * Update the wiki with a set of concerns about moving to SVN.
>
> My biggest concern is still the disfunctional merge operation of SVN. In
> my last contract job a few weeks ago I had it loose a set of changes
> during a merge :-(
>
> Note.. SourceForge is starting development and testing to offer SVN
service.
>
>
>
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> -- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything
> -- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com
> -- rrivera/acm.org - grafik/redshift-software.com
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>
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